OKORO AND JONAM COUNTY MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT VOW TO STAND FIRM ON WORKER’S FUNDS

BY THE EDITOR

KAMPALA. Members of parliament from Zombo and Pakwach districts have vowed to stand firm to ensure that the worker’s funds remain intact.

Speaking to our reporter, Okoro county Member of parliament Gabriel Okumu says there has been mass wastage of savers money in NSSF and action should be taken against those involved in its mismanagement.

“Those who have been implicated in the abuse of worker’s funds must be brought to book and must be accountable to the people of Uganda,” he says.

He proposes that the responsibility to appoint and supervise the NSSF managing director should be given to the NSSF board to avoid the abuse of workers funds.

“The current situation is that the minister of gender and social development by the recommendation of the President appoints the managing director who becomes unruly and becomes a dealer in NSSF,” he says.

He decried the level at which the workers funds are put to waste, citing the 11 billion unsecured loan which was given to Uganda clays among others.   

Okumu further suggested that the interest on workers savings should be increased so that workers can get something meaningful upon retirement and minimize its wastage by people who manage it.

 “Savers are being paid on their money peanuts and yet the rest of the money that remains with NSSF is put to waste,” he remarked.

He said that the IGG and the auditor general have to act as recommended by the parliament to conduct investigations and conduct a forensic audit in the mess in the NSSF.    

“It’s high time that parliament pulled out the red card to those that don’t deserve to hold public office. We as parliament do not want to condone corruption. We are going to stand firm against corruption because the people who voted us have high hopes in us,” he observed.

Emmanuel Ongiertho the Jonam county Member of parliament highlighted that a lot of workers funds are at the disposal of NSSF making it easy for the money to be mismanaged.

He proposed that the age of accessing the funds should be reduced to mitigate cases of its mismanagement. The current age of accessing NSSF funds according to the NSSF act is 55 years and above.

Parliament of Uganda on 9^th March adopted the recommendations by the probe committee on NSSF. They insisted that the minister of Gender and social development Betty Among should resign for having a hand in the mismanagement of the NSSF funds. However, the minister Among who gave a detailed response on the floor of parliament denied any wrong doing and insisted that she was victimized since she was the whistle blower who brought the mess in the workers fund to public limelight.